Alpine Journey– Part 3

July 8, 2008 | Laughing Knees | 16 Comments 

All sum­mer the mi­asma of di­a­betes had wrung havoc from my legs, ren­der­ing me at times in­ca­pable of tak­ing a step with­out ex­cru­ci­at­ing stabs of pain shoot­ing through my thighs. So as the Tour of Mont Blanc trip loomed be­fore me I wor­ried that there was no pos­si­ble way I was go­ing to be able to com­plete the jour­ney. The first steps up the foothills to the south­west of the Mont Blanc Mas­sif filled me with ap­pre­hen­sion, for the fur­ther I ven­tured away from con­nec­tions with towns and up into the wilder re­gion of the moun­tains the greater the risk of get­ting stuck up there. I had to grip my shoul­der straps tightly and set my heart for the dis­tance, telling my­self I could do this and that I wasn’t go­ing to let di­a­betes de­feat my love of moun­tain walking.

All through­out the foothills sur­round­ing the Mont Blanc range, es­pe­cially in France and Switzer­land, young fam­i­lies have re­turned to the vil­lages to bring new life back to the old chalets and byways.

I moved much slower than I would nor­mally have walked in days past, but, in spite of be­ing out of breath and falling be­hind every­one along the way, the hills and slopes rolled by and by mid-​​afternoon I found my­self gaz­ing at the vista of the alpine crags.

The moun­tains grew big­ger and big­ger, al­most fright­en­ingly so, with a mass and omi­nous­ness that I had never ex­pe­ri­enced with the high moun­tains in Japan. At once both a sense of dread mixed with un­ut­ter­able joy nagged at the back of my mind. It was all still too new to get lost in; even my pho­tos felt ten­ta­tive, as if try­ing out a grander horizon.

As the late af­ter­noon sun be­gan to ap­proach the line of peaks to the west and I still hadn’t reached the refuge where I hoped to stay for the night and no one else was in sight, I be­gan to lose heart that I would make it. Clouds were gath­er­ing and it looked like rain. Breath­ing heav­ily I topped one rise and came upon this memo­r­ial to win­ter. Out of breath I plopped down on an out­crop­ping and laughed like a man drunk.

The Refuge de Bon­homme sat above a tum­bling val­ley re­splen­dent with emer­ald green grass on every rounded slope. Upon set­ting my pack down and scan­ning the panorama be­low, I wit­nessed the famed alpine sheep seething across a dis­tant peak. For the first time I could pic­ture the land­scape the Heidi so adored.

All my life I had dreamed of glimps­ing Ibex. They rep­re­sented an al­most deity-​​like sym­bol of the re­mote and leg­endary world of the Alps, a place where only in­tre­pid moun­taineers and hardy shep­herds could ven­ture. So when I fin­ished my din­ner and glimpsed a lone Ibex toss­ing his horns along a dark ridge, I grabbed my cam­era and stalked out­side as fast as cau­tion al­lowed. The French­man, Se­bastien, who had be­friend me over a beer, laughed and cried out, “What’s the hurry? They’re so tame you’re guar­antied to see one! I just won­der about that bright red wind­shirt you’re wear­ing, though!”

The refuge was so dif­fer­ent from what you get in Japan. Peo­ple sat around meet­ing one an­other and wel­com­ing peo­ple they didn’t know. Two refuge staff mem­bers brought out gui­tars and sat on the kitchen counter singing songs to can­dle light. Out­side night fell, turn­ing the world blue while a pow­er­ful wind howled across the rooftop.

I fell asleep to the pat­ter­ing of rain against the bed­room win­dow and the rise and fall of Sebastien’s breath­ing. The stout wooden walls felt solid in the moun­tain air and the bed a safe haven. I slept so deeply that I can­not re­mem­ber that night.

One thing I dis­cov­ered as I walked was that you were never far away from at least a ham­let. To my sur­prise the Alps in Japan were much wilder and re­quired that one be a lot more self-​​sufficient. I was able to buy fresh Tambe cheese and still-​​warm baguette at a lo­cal bak­ery near the bus stop here in Chapieux.

My first glimpse of an alpine glac­ier came here in Villes des Glac­i­ers. At one time the glac­ier must have held an oth­er­worldly spell over the vil­lage be­low, but to­day so much of it had melted away that mostly only or­ange hued rock re­mained. Through­out the walk I saw clearly that all the glac­i­ers had melted away to but a frac­tion of their for­mer grandeur. It was hum­bling to such pow­er­ful forces of na­ture burned away to nothing.

The Absurdity of Obsession

July 4, 2008 | Laughing Knees | 5 Comments 

Af­ter you’ve been pok­ing around the ul­tra­light back­pack­ing world for a while some­times the lengths we take to get our gear as light as pos­si­ble stretches to the verge of madness…

Loathe to carry the weight of stakes, we pros­trate our­selves for the sake of a few grams.

En­joy­ing the great out­doors from the com­fort of your own home.

Try­ing to con­vince the unini­ti­ated about the ben­e­fits of go­ing light!